


a glass of your understanding

by VesperRegina



Category: Galileo (Japan TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, One Night Stands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22336423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperRegina/pseuds/VesperRegina
Summary: Utsumi shows up at Kusanagi's door, wanting one thing. She gets two.
Relationships: Kusanagi Shunpei/Utsumi Kaoru
Kudos: 2





	a glass of your understanding

Kusanagi opens his door to Utsumi, her hands passing over her face, wiping away the tiny amount of mascara she wears from her cheeks, and swallowing noisily.

"Utsumi?"

She yanks her hands away from her face. Her purse straps fall off her shoulder and she fumbles awkwardly to keep the purse from falling. Her eyes flick away from his. She licks her lips and says, "Can I come in?"

He steps away, watches her pass him, head lowered. She sniffs and turns to face him as he shuts the door.

"What's wrong?" he asks, not expecting an answer, because it's the most trite thing he could say. 

She doesn't answer, at first, of course, but she stands there and then looks up at him, effects a smile full of bravado and says, "What do you think?"

He still has no clue; there's no way that he could know, but this is Utsumi and she's been crying and is now here, for something, whatever it may be.

"Come on," he says, and moves toward her, guiding her with a hand at her shoulder, into his living room. She sits on his sofa, letting her purse slide off onto the floor, and covers her face with her hand, almost crumpling in on herself.

"Do you want some water, or..."

She looks up at that offer, says, "Something stronger, if you have it." Again she looks away, swallows, closes her eyes, and covers her face.

That he can recognize. She asked, and he won't deny, but... "How much have you already had to drink?"

She laughs, but it's a bitter thing. "Not enough."

He gives her the glass, not much, just enough, and sits beside her. This is new: Utsumi drunk, morose, and invading his space. She doesn't chug what he's given her, which he was expecting, but just takes a careful sip and looks around for a place to set it down. 

"Here," he says, and offers his hand. She hands the drink to him. "Why are you here?" he asks, this time more firm and pointed.

Her eyes are still sad. She says, "Do you really want the answer to that? I don't need you telling me things I already know."

"I wou-- " he starts, but her lips cover his, stay with careful pressure, and then she's looking at him again. There's a bind on his chest and a loss of breath and no answers, yet, though he's starting to suspect. There's a glass in his hand, and he puts it aside, a lifeline gone too soon.

Utsumi says, "Go ahead. Tell me I'm drunk and I'm wrong to be doing this. Like I don't know that I just kissed you and that it's not really what I want or need. Go ahead." She turns away, and caves in, the heels of her hands to her forehead, elbows on her knees, small.

He puts his hand to his mouth and considers this. The bitterness in her voice gives nothing away, but her words speak of cognizance. He takes a breath, then reaches out, takes her hand in his.

"I'm not your judge," he says. She looks at him at that, and the answering lift to a side of her mouth is reassuring. If she can recognize his sympathy, then he can help, somehow, whatever this is.

He sighs. "Come here." He releases her hand, holds his arm out, an offer for an embrace and she takes it, gathers herself into his side. She's warm. She curls in, puts her legs up on his couch and hides her face in his side and he places his arm around her, holds her close. There is something of the precious in it, rarity that coils up into a lump in his throat. He clears it, but says nothing.

She's quiet for a long time, and quiescent, and he holds on, trying not to let his mind chase avenues of speculation or desire, or anything else that isn't just comfort. Eventually, she says, still turned into him, "I'm so exhausted."

He starts to say that he could drive her home, but she continues, saying, "We just go in circles and I'm wearing myself out. I just -- " Her voice breaks off and her shoulders start to shake under his arm and there's nothing he can do but hold her.

She doesn't mean him. There's no way she could mean him and that leaves only-- He pulls away, puts her at arms length, hands on her shoulders. "I can't be him," he says.

Her mouth twists, and in it is genuine humor and pain, and loss, as well. "I don't want you to be him. I want you to be you. I want to be wanted." She leans in, hands coming up, reaching for him, and he can't help but back away.

"I'd say the same thing."

Her hands drop. "That's why I came here. I've seen you. I'm right here. I don't care what he'd say and you shouldn't either."

"Easy enough for you to say."

When she reaches for his hand, he lets her take it. She laces her fingers in and smiles. "I'd be yours, just like you'd be mine. For this night."

He looks at their hands. She's so sincere. She believes it, but there's a lie at the back of it, hidden badly. "For this night, yes. As if I don't know..."

"You could," she says, voice gentle, "you could one day, look back at this and be happy for it... and so would I."

"A good argument."

"I've been taught well."

He raises their entwined hands and kisses the back of hers. "I understand."

This time when she kisses him, her mouth is open and hot and he can feel her desperation in it. She reaches for his hand, guides it down between her legs. 

She does want this and the specter of what exists behind her desire is easily ignored, as she climbs into his lap and he answers the want in her actions with his own.

He keeps each touch considerate, waiting for rejection that never happens, and she holds his face in her hands the same way. When she starts removing his shirt, he doesn't stop her and when she unbuttons her pants and then his, all he does is look at her face, memorizing the intensity in it, the continuing sincerity. Why else would she be any way but this?

And when she closes her fingers on him, he's still lost in the examination of her face, enough that when she locks eyes with him and says, "I still want this," all he can say is yes, yes, yes.

Yukawa be damned. He won't ever know what he's lost.

Kusanagi almost lets this slip, almost whispers it into Utsumi's ear as she takes time to rip open a foil packet she takes from her pocket, before she settles on him, takes him in, but it's not what she wants to hear. She doesn't want revenge: she only wants relief, and he's willing to give her that, just that.

She's solid soft skin under his fingers, his lips. She doesn't look away from him now, moving on him, rising and falling through the skimming of his hands over her body. She deserves leading this. Utsumi tenses, quivers, and the brief moment when he's gone and high is a regret he'll forget as much as possible. He comes to with her forehead to his, and her sound of dry amusement, soft in the space between them. Her hands rest on his chest and her head moves so that her lips graze the side of his. The rise and fall of her breathing slows under his hands.

"You came prepared," he breathes. "I could have said no."

"I wouldn't have pushed harder. Thank you," she says.

He answers honestly. "You shouldn't."

He feels her smile more than he sees it. "If you say so."

He puts his hands on her face, and she lifts her head. There are tears in her eyes, still. "Please," he says, "do something other than this next time."

"Yes, sir," she says. 

There is no response in her mouth but soft damp breath when he kisses her, places his love into it, though whether she feels it there isn't something he should ask of her. It's there; that's enough for him.

"I meant it," he says, at the door. He leaves it to her to parse what he means.

"So did I," she answers.

She squeezes his arm, settles her purse over her shoulder, and then she's gone, walking away from him. He closes the door.

Her drink is on his end table. He takes it up and downs it.


End file.
